Working in the Garden – Doing A Lot With Limited Space - Delicious Obsessions I am constantly surprised at what you can do with a small space in regards to gardening. I have been able to grow a lot in my teeny tiny yard. My garden area is 5 feet by 12 feet. It takes up about half of the backyard – the other half is a concrete pad. But, I still manage to produce quite a bit of food, and I’m hoping this year will be even better. I’m learning more about what works and what doesn’t, and I have made a commitment to fertilize my garden often (once per week)! In-ground garden in 2010 The first two years that we lived here, I just dug an in-ground garden. I don’t know how many people tell me that they don’t have the space to garden. Now that I am crazy about gardening, it makes me want to do more to be sustainable. I highly recommend the fertilizers and soil amendments from MightyGrow Organics. If you’re a budding urban gardener, here are some of my favorite resources – I checked the books out at my local library. Pepper and tomato plants in containers
7 things you can make yourself instead of buying Interested in uplifting stories on the natural world, sustainable communities, simple food, and new thinking on how to live well? Please enter a valid email address and try again! No thanks Strawberry Margarita Jell-O Shooters Strawberry Margarita Jell-O Shooters Margarita Jell-O Shooters ~ A fun farewell to summer and a festive edition to your Sunday football tailgate party or gatherings. For another Jello shooter variation like this one, check out my Lemon Drop Jello Shooters cut into the shape of lemon wedges and my Rocky Candy Shooters shaped just like the rock candy you loved as a kid. Strawberry Margarita Jello Shooters As many of you know, my Lemon Drop Jell-O Shooters are my issued dish from my girlfriend who holds the annual tailgate kickoff amongst our friends. This year with Matt being in the hospital, I sent them forward to the gathering in our absence. Now that we can finally make the next one in two weeks, she has again requested Jell-O shooters. That being the case, I opted to try what you see here. Besides how cute and fun are these? Printthis recipe Saveto recipe box Yield: Makes 24-30 Shooters Ingredients: 24-30 Strawberries Margarita Mix Directions: Strawberry Prep: A few notes: Leave a Comment
Backyard Gardening Blog Fitness Friday #8: Top 13 Foods You Should Eat At Least Once A Week This week for “Fitness Friday” I enlisted the help of an expert! Yoplait Light’s Swap Coach, Christina Meyer-Jax. She is a registered dietitian and Nutrition Communicator at the General Mills Bell Institute of Health and Nutrition. I asked her to help me compile a list of the “Top Foods You Should Eat At Least Once A Week.” She offered 13 delicious suggestions as well as ideas on how to incorporate them into your diet. #1) Yogurt: Just 1 cup of most yogurts provides a good source of the daily value of calcium and has phosphorus, potassium, zinc, riboflavin, vitamin B12 and protein. Usage Idea: Yogurt can be eaten at any time of the day- breakfast, snack or dessert. Frozen Red Velvet Cake #2) Flaxseeds: Flaxseeds contain omega 3s, which are essential polyunsaturated fats that are typically low in the average American diet. Usage Idea: Sprinkle seeds or ground flaxseed on your cereal, oatmeal, yogurt, salad, or sandwiches. Bran-Flax Muffins Watermelon and Feta Salad with Pumpkin Seeds
Drunken Coffee Jello Squares OK, kids: This is coffee. In solid form. It’s been sweetened with condensed milk and booze-ified with a healthy dose of Kahlua—then rubberized into a blissful, cocktail-hour finger food thanks to the magic of gelatin. (If you know me, you know how much I love coffee, so you can imagine how excited I was when I came across the recipe.) Now, you have to like Jello, or Jello-like food, for this to work. Huge thanks to The Food Librarian for sharing their deliciousness. (If you haven’t checked out the Food Librarian’s blog, you should. So, years ago, I had several meals that ended with Classic American Jello Mold Torture. This is not that jello. This jello is the short and stout cousin of Vietnamese iced coffee, that fabulous concoction of espresso and condensed milk. This is jello that you could serve to your foodie friends. This stuff is silly. The short version of the recipe goes like this Bloom the gelatin (i.e. mix it together with water) for about 10 minutes. That’s it. Brew the coffee
A How to Guide to Growing Bulbs : : You did it This is a guest post by Amy Fowler. There are several clever methods of growing bulbs all year round. Naturalising and forcing are just two examples, amongst a number of others. Storing Bulbs If, for whatever reason, you cannot plant your bulbs on the same day as you buy them, make sure you store them correctly. Planting Bulbs Of course, the most important part of growing bulbs is making sure you plant them correctly.This requires more than just healthy topsoil. 1) Bulbs grow most efficiently when they are planted in groups of 6-24. 2) Large bulbs should be planted eight to twelve inches under the topsoil. 3) Applying mulch and water in abundance will make sure the soil does not dry out during the summer. 4) It is a common misconception to believe that every time you plant bulbs you need to apply fertiliser to the ground. Other Tips Unfortunately, freshly planted bulbs are more than appealing to squirrels. If this does not work, then it is time to invest in some good old chicken wire.
Sugar-Free Peanut Butter, Oatmeal and Banana Cookies - Vegan Cookie Recipe - Sugar-free peanut butter cookies Using flour with oatmeal and relying on a dash of maple syrup for sweetness, this sugar-free cookie recipe is a healthy dessert that will be sure to please every health-conscious cookie lover! This cookie is also quite low in calories. See also: More Sugar-free Cookie Recipes Prep Time: 10 minutes Total Time: 10 minutes Ingredients: 1/3 cup peanut butter2 ripe bananas (overripe is fine)1 tsp vanilla2 tbsp soy milk2 tbsp maple syrup 2 ½ cups quick cooking or rolled oatmealdash cinnamon (optional)1/4 cup flour Preparation: In a large bowl, mash bananas with a fork until smooth. Drop spoonfuls of dough onto an ungreased cookie sheet and bake 13-16 minutes at 350 degrees, or until done. Note: This recipe is only truly sugar-free if you used unsweetened peanut butter and unsweetened soymilk, so read the ingredients list and look for soy milk that says "Unsweetened" right on the label. More vegan desserts
How to Make Beer - Making Beer at Home Making a mash is not always necessary--you can brew a perfectly good lager or ale with prepackaged malt extract. But for this recipe, we're going all out, with an all-grain beer-- we extract the sugars from the grain ourselves. The recipe we're following is for a beer in the Belgian white or "wit" sytle. It's called "Wit Ginger, Not Mary Ann," and was published by the esteemed beer-brewing magazine, Zymurgy. Ingredients: 11 pounds of grain 11 quarts of water Our grains include 5 pounds Belgian pilsner malt, 4.5 pounds of German wheat malt, 1.0 pound of flaked oats, and 0.5 pounds of caramel pils malt. Take the mash (all the ingredients above in a pot) and bring it up to 150 degrees F, keeping it at that exact temperature for 1 hour. * Test the mash: The point of mashing is to turn starches in the grain into sugars and extract them into a sweet liquor.
How to Keep Onions My nephew’s football team was selling 25 pound bags of Vidalia onions a few weeks ago as a fund raiser for their team. Of course I snapped them up, thinking of all the delicious dishes I could make with 25 pounds of onions. And then they were delivered. Did you know that 25 pounds of onions is a whole lot of onions? Well, luckily, I remembered my Grandmother would always have onions on hand from those she’d grown in her garden. She’d have them practically year-round and without any of the stink of onions going bad in her pantry. You know that smell? Yeah, I do too. So I decided I either had to crank out one onion dish after another for a week or get busy storing them as my Grandmother did many years ago. Here’s how you store onions using the good ole pantyhose method. 1. So now, don’t be afraid of buying your onions in bulk.